


Rotten To The Core

by ImogenSmiley



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: 52 Week Oneshot Challenge, After the death of Kira, Canon Compliant, Canon Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gothisms, Character Study, Consequences, Death Note - Freeform, Depression, F/M, Fallout, Goth - Freeform, Gothic, Grief, How to kill a shinigami, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Notes, Manipulation, Mild Witchcraft, Misa-Centric, Oneshot, Post Episode 37, Post-Canon, Post-Light's Death, Post-Mortem Manipulation, Puppeteering, Shinigami Realm, Suicidal Misa Amane, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, The Fall of Kira, Unrequited Love, What Happened After Light Died, What Happened Next, Witchcraft, emotional distress, immersion, off-screen events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22909372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImogenSmiley/pseuds/ImogenSmiley
Summary: Within an hour of Light’s body being recovered from the warehouse, Misa Amane was arrested.
Relationships: Amane Misa/Yagami Light, Implied Amane Misa/Rem
Kudos: 26





	Rotten To The Core

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! I managed to finish this oneshot! I've been working on it for weeks! But now its finally live, another Wednesday is here and another instalment of the 52 Week Oneshot Challenge is finally live! I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! This has been a really fun concept to dive into!

Within an hour of Light’s body being recovered from the warehouse, Misa Amane was arrested. Again. Her fiancé’s friends, colleagues, had burst into her apartment, using exceeding levels of force, to the blonde woman’s chagrin. She had laughed as three of the men, wearing face-covering masks, pointed weapons at her, nodding at each of them respectively, and declaring that they didn’t need to be so crass – they all knew where the couple hid the spare key.

Matsuda had been the one to handcuff Misa, his cheeks still wet from the tears he’d shed. He knew, he knew from Light’s frantic, hoarse cries, that at some point, Misa Amane had been Kira. But he also knew that whether or not the idol knew about who Light was, her fiancé had just been murdered – executed, by his own hands.

He had quietly and calmly informed Misa that she was being arrested under suspicion of being The Second Kira. He therefore was going to cover her eyes with a mask. She had wilfully obliged, and allowed the four men, Matsuda, Mogi, Ide and Aizawa, to escort her from the apartment that she and Light shared.

For hours, she was stuck in the dark, hands cuffed over her front. Her head had been hung, but she had been chatty, idle, explaining to the one-way glass that Light would get this all straightened out.

Behind the glass, Aizawa stood with the SPK, watching the woman speak with narrowed eyes. This reminded him, much too vividly of when she had been detained all of those years ago by L. Back when she had a bulk of evidence against her, saying she was the Second Kira. How she would prattle on, talk and talk and talk, evoking frustration from everyone listening in.

Aizawa’s eye twitched as her voice wobbled in octaves. He ground his teeth and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. His colleagues had all retreated from the room, either to be assessed by a doctor, interviewed or just due to general feelings of unease. Aizawa, however, he had stayed. Although he knew Matsuda was celebrating, there was still much to discuss. Much to learn. There could be numerous more Death Notes out there in the world. And with Light having been killed after fleeing the interrogation, Misa Amane was, frustratingly, the only tangible lead they had.

The question was, what did she or didn’t she know, and how could they find out.

Among the items seized from Teru Mikami and Light Yagami was a false Death Note, and the real one that Near had acquired. Ryuk, the Shinigami had fled after Light’s death and Aizawa had reluctantly accepted that an entity of death, demise and chaos was not going to be able to face the judicial system of the species that was below them. That was like Aizawa being on trial in a court filled with chickens. There was no way.

A chunk of evidence had consequently been lost. They couldn’t keep a God grounded to the mortal realm. That was just obvious.

But what did that mean for Misa? Convicting her would be much harder, especially without record of Light calling for her assistance when he was lying writhing in pain in a pool of his own blood.

Aizawa wrinkled his nose.

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing the slight figure of Near entering the room. He had the waxy mask he had worn earlier, tipped back on the crown of his head.

“Lidner, when you’re ready.”

The white-blonde woman nodded, lowering her head to those with her and briskly exited the room, her high heels clacking on the smooth marbled floors. Aizawa watched with narrowed eyes as Lidner and Near entered the room with Misa.

She perked up from the minute she heard the door open, “Light?” she called, “Light! Is that you?”

“Unfortunately not, Miss Amane,” Near had said, pulling his mask over his face.

He nodded to Lidner, who crossed the room. They unshackled her and ushered her to a table and chair in the far corner of the room, binding her again, “My associate is going to remove your blindfold now, and then we are going to have a chat, is that okay?”

“Shouldn’t Light be here if this is happening again? He is going to be my husband! It’s not fair for him to be left in the dark.”

Aizawa sighed audibly, dragging a hand through his short curls. He shook his head into his palm and sighed again.

Misa’s blindfold had been removed, and a shrill gasp escaped her parted crimson lips. She eyed Lidner with wide eyes and flinched away from her, “You!”

“Miss Amane,” Near said, immediately grasping her attention, “Pay her no heed.”

Misa wrinkled her nose, attempting to cross her hands across her chest, but was unable due to her handcuffs. She crossed her legs over each other and huffed, blowing her fringe up off her face.

“Take that off,” she said, “You’re not him. Ryuzaki died. You’re disrespecting him by wearing that.”

“Ah but Miss Amane,” Near said, drawing out the words, “I wanted to wear a face you would trust.”

Her lip curled upward, “Where is Light?”

“Miss Amane. We at the SPK have called you here because your fiancé Light Yagami has been found guilty of crimes of mass-terrorism against humanity by donning the face of Kira.”

“You’re lying.”

“He has consequently been executed.”

“You’re bluffing!” she pressed, voice strained. Her eyes darted around the room, looking in the shadows for something, anything. But she couldn’t see.

“So you see, Miss Amane, since your fiancé is, sorry, _was_ Kira. We are using all necessary precaution with you. As you are likely the Second Kira.”

Misa snorted a laugh, drawing her cuffed hands to her lips, “ _Light_? Kira? _Me_! Kira? You seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. Now where is Light! I need to see him!”

“Lidner,” Near said, ducking his head and removing his mask, snowy white hair rumbling from behind the plastic. He gazed up at the older woman with cold, fish-like eyes. He did not look away from her deep hazel eyes.

“Miss Amane,” Near said, holding his hand out toward Linder and receiving a large tan envelope. He unclasped the front and produced a freshly developed glossy picture. He slid the photo across the table to Misa.

A light brown haired man in a grey suit with a black tie was lying, splayed across a flight of stairs, blood drenching the soft cotton of his dress-shirt. His deep brown eyes were open, vacant, listless, staring into nothing.

Tears spilled over her eyes, mascara tears trickling down her cheeks toward parted lips. Her breaths were shaky, words forming on a tongue that wasn’t fast enough to keep up with her brain. Thoughts raced a mile a minute as she stared at the face of the man she loved, lifeless.

“How... _cruel_ ,” she whispered.

Aizawa gulped, “Here we go, you might want to cover your ears.”

The Americans raised their eyebrows, looking down their noses at him as he stuck his fingers deep into the cavities of his ears and watched, and waited.

After a few moments, she pawed at her eyes, staining her skin black with the mascara that had pooled from her lashes, she reared back in her chair and slammed her palms against the table that separated her from Near.

“You _monster_! He wasn’t Kira! Light was a good man!”

Near stared back at her, closing his eyes and then opening them again as she swallowed, “Miss Amane, he confessed.”

“You’re lying! You’re making this up! He wouldn’t – he _couldn’t_! He wouldn’t do that to me! He wouldn’t be Kira and not tell me!”

“Ah, but Miss Amane, that’s why you’re here,” Near said, turning his head to Lidner. She produced a notebook from the inside pocket of her blazer and tore a corner of the paper off the edge of a page, and pulled a bobby pin from her own hair to plunge the paper into Misa’s hair, making sure the page retained contact with the idol’s skin.

Her breathing hitched, she sat, gormless, staring into nothing, struggling to catch her breath. Tears trickled down her cheeks but words didn’t come. She grasped the sleeves of her shirt and rocked forward and backward in her chair.

She reared backward and forward onto the table, slumping onto the surface, biting her lip, eyes searching the space for a face, a body, an entity. She remembered everything.

Near seemed to have registered the change in demeanour as easily as all of the other officers behind the glass did. Aizawa withdrew his fingers from his ears and returned to watching.

She slumped back in her seat, crossing her arms seamlessly and raised an eyebrow expectantly. Near nodded.

“Since you seem willing to co-operate now, I can assume that you have retained memories from the piece of the notebook.”

Misa pursed her lips but didn’t reply, she could remember everything, all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle she had forced together were now seamlessly coming together. She was overwhelmed, but she knew, she knew everything.

Everything.

Light was Kira. She was Kira, and if he really was dead, the only person she had left to depend upon was herself. She needed to think – she needed a chance to get her thoughts together and make them into something tangible, physical, that she could keep with her after the piece of the death note was pulled out of where it rested, pinned into her hair.

She closed her eyes.

If she were to react and attempt to take the note back from her hair, then Lidner would use her very obvious pistol to incapacitate her. If not, kill her. She would have to think of something that wouldn’t attract the attention of the two people in the room, or the investigators who were bound to be sat behind a pane of one-way-glass.

She took a deep breath, if Light was incapacitated, and this child had access to L’s records, then they would still have access to the evidence that had been collected against her. In theory, the easiest thing to do would be to set HQ on fire but that was far too conspicuous and obvious. She’d get done for arson for sure. That wouldn’t be a viable alternative at all.

She hummed, drawing her hands onto her lap, pressing her scarlet acrylic nails into her palms.

“Miss Amane, since you seem to have retained memories. I hope you will be able to answer me a simple question.”

Misa tilted her head from the left to the right, eyes not leaving the child. She bit her tongue, doing her best not to size him up and devour him. She had to play this cautiously, lest he be anticipating a battle of wits. Light could read people and their thoughts. He could anticipate moves, and had an ability to foresee people’s intentions tenfold. If he had really died at the hands of this _infant_ , then she was really a deer in the headlights.

No – no. She couldn’t think that way, if she panicked then she was doomed.

“And what might that be?” Misa asked.

“Did you know, Miss Amane, that Gods of Death, are not among mortal men.”

_‘L, did you know, that Gods of Death, love apples?’_

Light had written those words.

He was testing her. And it seemed that just by watching her face, he had gotten what he wanted. A rouse.

Near stood up, revealing his full-height to Misa, showing just how young he really was. She glared at the boy, the child who had petulantly desecrated the name, the legacy and the world she and Light had worked tirelessly to build.

Lidner pulled the bobby pin from Misa’s hair, securing the piece of the death note swiftly in her hands before she could catch it herself.

As she did so it was like the colour of Misa’s eyes changed, got lighter by maybe a fraction of a millimetre on the colour spectrum. It was subtle but instantaneous, like a veil had been removed from over her iris. A film had disappeared into nothingness. Her memories disappeared into smoke that she was unable to catch.

“Light Yagami was Kira. And Kira is dead. Do what you want with that information.”

Misa drew her hands up to her bright blonde hair and dug her nails into her scalp, screaming at her reflection. 

Aizawa turned his head to the Americans, Giovanni and Rester. He smirked slightly as they struggled to remain composed at the count of her banshee screams. He turned his nose up at the investigators and took his own leave. He had to return to his space in the Japanese Kira Task Force Headquarters to try and find where Light would have filed the evidence they had compiled on Misa Amane.

It took two days in custody for her hands to start to scab over. The deep searing punctures she had made with her stiletto point false nails had left deep wounds that could scar over. She refused to let the doctors see her, insisting that everything was fine. Even without her memories, there was something about the urgency that she must have stabbed her own skin with that meant she had to just wait to see what message she had left for herself. It could be nonsense; it could be ingenious. But from the look of the angry red skin, it looked like a series of letters, ripped into her skin. She had meant for her to be able to see this: find some meaning in them.

She had been content in her cell, requesting very little but chatting idly to the policemen who guarded her. She didn’t recognise any of them, but she spoke to each person behind their heady headgear like a friend, the same way she had done to Ryuzaki. The same way she had done to Light.

Oh Light, was it really true? Had he really been convicted and executed, so publically, so grotesquely. It was unbecoming of a man of his status. She had begged for a copy of the image Near had shown her. She had to see it, maybe he had left a message for her, he always used to.

She had been called into a variety of interviews since being confined, usually with Aizawa. He looked down his nose at her, lip curling when he spoke. More so when he listened to what she had to be exposed tp. But even he couldn’t look at the blonde woman as she was made to listen to the audio. Hearing a strained mic recording the breathless calls of a dying man. Each time she heard them, the more she could visualise it. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to believe that a man as great as Light could be brought down in such a pathetic way. He would have had to have been so convoluted, so trapped in his own head to not have seen the barrel pointed at him.

But even when he was dying, he called for her. Surely that was the greatest declaration of love she could ever have asked for. Light wanted her to be with him as he lost his grip on life, in his most vulnerable state. It was her that he longed for, yearned for with every nerve in his body screaming for his pain to end.

She had wept.

It had been three days after her initial arrest that the scabs were raised on her skin enough for her to see what those marks were, the curvature of her stiletto nails had been a makeshift blade to carve one word into her palm. She could finally read it.

Rem.

What did that mean? What had she been trying to say? Rem? Wasn’t that a band? R.E.M? Some American band. Did Light used to listen to them? No…but, his father used to. She remembered him blasting their greatest hits once upon a time.

That felt like forever ago now. Maybe she had been trying to prompt herself. Was there a clue in their music? Could that be it?

She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, trying to recall some of their songs. Some were easier to recall than others, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. She needed Google, or YouTube, or a record player. But she was in prison, what could be done when she was stuck in prison?

She cursed her brain for not being as vast as her fiancé’s. Light would have worked out what this clue meant immediately, after all, he was a genius.

Misa chewed the skin on her lip, cradling her body with her sore hands, only opening her eyes when the door swung open again.

“Misa Amane,” Lidner said, glaring down at her, “We are unable to detain you without probable cause, and due to an administrative issue, we are yet to recover the necessary paperwork. But, before we release you, we would like to ask you about one piece of evidence we have recovered.”

“Sure?” Misa said.

Lidner reached into her inside blazer pocket, flashing her hip-holster at Misa while she produced a folded up piece of paper. As she opened the sheet up, Misa spotted the inconsistencies in the underside of the paper’s colour. It was an image.

Lidner handed the paper to Misa, she saw words written in thin, chicken-scratch handwriting that seemed vaguely familiar. The paper read ‘break your glass heart and you’ll find me in the fragments’.

She wrinkled her nose, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We were going to ask you the same question.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean?” Misa offered.

Lidner looked at the camera behind her and left, “You will be escorted from the premises in an hour, Miss Amane.”

Misa hummed to herself. What on earth was that supposed to mean, it sounded beautiful, like poetry. But could it be literal, tangible? She had many ornaments from her previous address that Light had thought were a bit too “much” and she had kept them in boxes. Maybe there were glass hearts in there?

The goth she had been all those years ago had been locked away in a box after Light Ryuzaki died. There wasn’t much to it. They’d just grown up they’d had to, after losing someone so important.

Even losing Ryuzaki wouldn’t have prepared her for going home.

She hadn’t been back since she found out what had happened to Light, and although Light’s mother, and sister both knew where Misa kept the spare key, they hadn’t gone in. Instead, they had posted letters underneath the door to her, saying that they hoped she was okay. It seemed that they hadn’t known of her arrest. Which was good.

The apartment was messy, mould was growing on dirty dishes and the rubbish should have been taken out days ago. It stank in there.

She probably stank too, she hadn’t showered since before she was arrested, or brushed her hair with an actual comb, or even changed her clothes. She needed to wash the grime off her skin and clean herself up so she could focus, so she could think. But, was there much point? She had to clean the apartment.

She had been quick to tie the bin liner up and toss all of the dishes into a new one. She would buy new ones; she couldn’t eat off something that had mould on it. That was gross.

With two bin bags in her hands and her keys in her teeth she opened the door, and approached the stairs, where she saw Sayu.

The dark haired girl looked about as unhinged as Misa felt. She bolted up the stairs, and embraced her, uncaring that she smelt, and looked disgusting, “Misa-chan I’m so glad you’re okay, we’ve been so worried about you.”

“Sayu-chan…” Misa mumbled into the younger girl’s hair.

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you for three days, but you never answered the door. Mum said I should give you space but he, he was my brother too, yanno? I thought you’d want someone to talk to who loved him.”

She nodded, breathing shaky.

“Thank you, Sayu…”

“Come on, Misa-chan, let’s throw all this out and go inside, yeah/”

“Yeah. Let’s.”

Sayu had been kind, much too kind. Considering everything that poor girl went through, Misa had been astounded by how willing she really was to help. Despite being six years Misa’s junior, Sayu was willing to do whatever she could, despite being in so much pain herself. Misa had lost the love of her life, but Sayu had lost her father, and her brother within a year. She was so strong.

The dark haired girl had helped Misa remove her false nails and lit scented candles around the house to cleanse the smell of rotting food and mould. Misa had finally had the chance to shower and get changed into warm, comfortable clothes. They ordered fast food and she stayed there all night, reminiscing about Light as if they were just gossiping about him while he was away on business like they used to. Sayu had always been so quick to tease him.

They’d broken into tears several times, but had held one another while they cried. He was so important to both of them, and losing him wasn’t easy.

As the dawn of a new day broke, Sayu yawned and hugged her sister-in-law of all-intensive-purposes. She told her that her mother had made arrangements already for the funeral, it would be in a week and a half at the church where Sochiro was buried.

The heavens had wept on the day of Light’s funeral. They had howled in an inconsolable state of lachrymosa that Misa couldn’t help but relate to. If God dies, then of course the heavens would cry.

She had made sure to dress appropriately, in her best black lace gown, a black-rose veil with a lace trim that fell down to the small of her back. Her nails were freshly painted onyx and she had an umbrella held in gloved hands and wore her highest heels. All of her cross-motif necklaces were around her neck, as was a red heart shaped pendant with a blade stabbing it. She had to make a statement, she was mourning God.

There hadn’t been many guests; mostly Light’s colleagues. The policemen that were lucky enough to still be alive, holding the hands of their uninvited girlfriends, wives and partners. She did her best to be solemn and kind, but seeing Matsuda holding hands with his fiancée, Hisui made her want to scream. It wasn’t fair that they all got to survive this ordeal and her beloved Light didn’t get to.

Considering how charismatic and popular Light seemed to be, the service was quick and short. Misa had done her best to prolong it, telling long and convoluted stories as she wept over the ebony casket her fiancé rested in. But the memory of being told that Light was executed wouldn’t leave her mind. Could it have been one of them? One of those men in the church with her? Could any of them look her in the eye?

When the service concluded, they walked toward the cemetery. Ryuzaki was buried somewhere on the grounds too. But Light’s modest grave was placed beside his father’s. His colleagues had been silent, eyes only misty when they glanced at the suspiciously new flowers at the face of Sochiro’s grave.

They laid their flowers, handfuls of bright orange lilies above the casket and glaring into the earth. Once they had covered his body, Matsuda had trudged off to the waiting arms of his girlfriend. She took his hand and left with him, his face buried into the crook of his elbow.

Aizawa watched him go, looking desperate to do the same. Misa watched him watch Matsuda, lips pursed from beneath her veil. She wondered whether anyone was judging her for her attire, but reckoned that it was being written off as “Misa-isms”. Her long false lashes fanned out as she blinked, sizing up the retreating frame of Matsuda. She wondered how much Hisui knew, and began to mull over how much collateral Kira would allow if she were able to avenge him.

Was vengeance worth it? It wouldn’t bring Kira back, and she didn’t have anything she could use to return Kira to the mortal world, after all, she couldn’t remember anything, and she knew that if Light really had been Kira that this was for his own good. She loved him so dearly, but wised that he had been trusting enough to let her be aware. She wanted to believe that he valued her safety but if she knew how he killed, if she remembered then maybe, just maybe she would be able to do something now. Kira’s legacy would be immortalised in mankind’s history, but she wished she knew how she could help.

Her gaze flickered to the scars on her palm, “REM”, what did that mean? She had been listening to their music on repeat since she was released but still didn’t understand.

When she stopped focusing on the thoughts pounding in her head, she noticed that most of the already thin crowd had dissipated into none. Even his sister, even his mother had gone. There were barely any flowers laid for Light and nobody had thought to drag her from his side. She knelt on the freshly buried plot, knees penetrating the soft earth and reached for his headstone, tracing his name on the surface, allowing her tears to spill over once again.

This wasn’t right.

She had gone into the attic that night and recovered all of her décor from before they moved in together. All of the black photo frames filled with images of them. She had dusted them off and hung them up on every nail she could find around the house. She didn’t care for abstract wall art, or clocks, or anything that screamed “normal domestic life” she was a widow without the ring. They were going to be married, and she had nothing without him.

In the boxes she found ceramic ornaments, candles, goblets and witchy voodoo art. Hundreds of books on spirituality and the occult.

She ordered her shopping to be delivered to the door, cashing in on the money that they had saved for the wedding, and the money she had been given as appropriate, thanks to Light’s Will. It was very straightforward: “Everything I own, all of my material possessions, all of my assets, everything in my name, will henceforth belong to Misa Amane”.

Preparing healthy food was a painful waste of time, so she mostly ate raw vegetables and fruit, drinking mineral water and reading.

Sayu had checked in once a week, but eventually she stopped coming, leaving Misa to process everything on her own. Every once in a while, she would make the first move; leaving the house and walking the streets like a thoughtless ghost, still wearing the black lace she loved so much in her youth, and would visit the Yagami family home and mourn with Sayu and her mother, but even then there was little to be said.

Losing Light had inspired a resurgence in the macabre habits Misa had once been so dedicated to. Scented candles had been discarded in favour of incense sticks, which she burned until the small hours, reading under the lights of candelabras made or iron and jet.

Each day she delved deeper into the pages of beaten up paperbacks and glorious leather-bound spell-books. Worn yellowed pages covered in cursive instructions were being burned into the back of her mind. She needed to work everything out. Everyone else seemed to know everything, or nothing.

But she was stuck in purgatory desperate to learn but unable to decipher scripture that could lead her to the truth. What did the scars on her hadn mean, what did that message in her file that had replaced the evidence mean? Who had written that message – it wasn’t Light, anyone with eyes would have been able to see that.

She had listened to REM on a crackling record player while she unpacked the dozens of boxes from the attic. She decorated a once pleasurable and subtle pink apartment with accents of black wherever it could sit. But there was one box left, filled with trinkets.

She dug through one ornate silver chest and found a ruby red pendant made of glass. Her eyes widened as the words of that note came to mind. Maybe it was nothing, but maybe it was everything. She took hold of the pendent and hurled it across the room at the wall. The shards of crimson glass hit the floor and inside was the smallest scrap of paper.

She approached the shards and lifted the sheet of paper up between her nails, it just brushing her skin.

She took in a sharp breath, words, thoughts and feelings flooded her system. Light, her, L, Ryuzaki, everything. Every detail, every thought, faces names, facts, fictions. She realised all of it, everything came back to her, and the first thing that flashed to the forefront of her mind was a pair of large, yellow eyes. Rem.

Rem! It was never REM like the band, it was a name; a woman’s name, a Shinigami’s name, she had carved the name of the Shinigami that aided her into her palms. It made sense.

Everything made sense.

This scrap of paper was part of her original Death Note, the one that once belonged to Gelus. There was a note written on the paper in a scrawl that she recognised, neat and slanted cursive, Light’s writing. It said “I love you”. Whether it was real or an imitation was unbeknownst to her, but with both Rem and Gelus gone, it meant she could go to the jewellers and get the piece of the notebook attached to her engagement ring and the staff would never see the Shinigami. And, she could retain her memory. She used false nails to prise the corner off the notebook and thrust it into her bra, leaving the rest in a plastic wallet that she then tucked under her pillow. This was perfect. Perfectly, perfectly, perfect.

She could remember. Everything.

The next morning, she had woken up bright and early and dressed in her most amicable attire to start her chess game with the infantile bastard that had taken Light from her. She strode into the first jewellery shop and asked the clerk to use metal to fuse this last love note to her engagement ring, for her late-fiancé. The clerk had nodded with misty eyes and rung up a total. Misa paid and waited in the foyer, her head down. She didn’t want to catch the attention of anyone, after all, she might be under surveillance. She wasn’t sure whether there were cameras in her apartment, and didn’t have the means to check, but she had to keep up appearances either way. She had to think cooly.

With her new ring, now accessorised with a piece of the Death Note, she was able to walk out of the jewellers and know that if that microscopic scrap of paper were to be lost, she would be okay. With pursed lips she wandered through the town centre, purchasing an obnoxious bouquet of red roses, and made her wat toward the cemetery.

But she stopped, dead in her tracks, when she spotted a young, dark haired man, holding a modest bouquet of striking white calla lilies at Sochiro Yagami’s headstone. He was crying, heavy breathing audible from the path Misa lingered on. He was mumbling under his breath, profuse apologies, begging for forgiveness. He called himself stupid for the earth and heavens to hear. She paused, breath hitching.

Matsuda.

If Matsuda was apologising to Sochiro, then the odds were that out of all of the members of the Japanese Kira Task Force, it would have been him that executed Light. Touta Matsuda, stupid Matsuda, weak, puny, idiotic Matsuda, had reached the peak of foolishness and assassinated the God of the New World.

Her lip trembled and she did her best to walk on, but her gaze kept going back toward where he stood, weeping.

The foolish man had confessed, but with the only scrap of her Death Note now fused to a ring, she couldn’t kill him without a trace. She would have to work out another way.

Her lip curled upward, she had to be careful.

With her head down, she found the plot where her parents were resting. She hadn’t visited in a long time, weeds had sprouted and litter had been discarded there. She stared at their headstone, a younger her would have wept, but she had nothing to say. She hadn’t thought of her parents in years, all she cared about was Light. She knew that now, and it was sad. No tears came as she dropped the roses at the foot of their plot and took her leave.

She had memories as a weapon now, all she needed was an opportunity.

She had been lying in wait, festering in anger for months. Never straying from her mission of vengeance. She would spend hours listening to music in the middle of her living room, curtains drawn and candles lit. Chanting spells for protection, memorising them so she could be alone in her thoughts.

She was stumped about what to do next, seasons were coming and going and the only thing keeping her motivated was the realisation that she had won and wouldn’t be arrested for being the Second Kira. She was safe and she was free because of a system wipe-out and what she reckoned was Rem’s meddling with the physical data.

But not having Light there for Christmas had been hard. As much as conspiring for revenge was fuelling her to stay alive, she was still grieving, after all, she knew not of what awaited him after he had been murdered.

Though, she couldn’t deny that she had wanted to tear her hair out and just end it all when she saw the wedding photos from the wedding ceremony between Matsuda and Hisui, she remembered that he’d said that they’d get married after Kira was caught, but she never expected that they’d get hitched so quickly. But she reckoned that she would have done the same, had the shoe been on the other foot. They had been engaged for a very, very long time. Maybe two years in limbo, waiting for Kira to fall, but then again, she had been waiting to marry Light for seven years, and never got the chance.

There had been plenty of venom when she declined to attend the service, instead, she just saw social media flooding with excited friends and family congratulating the pair and wishing them well. She had considered sneaking into the reception but she couldn’t ruin Hisui’s day. After all, she couldn’t recall anything at all that could make her guilty. Seemed she was just an innocent in the crossfire that just happened to love the wrong man.

Maybe the same could be said about Misa?

Valentines was right around the corner, and she was still as confused and frantic as she had been the minute she got her memories back, but depression was sinking in. She was watching the hardy women in the Yagami family brush themselves off and move on, but she was still stuck. Light still had her heart, and she knew that there was nothing that she could do to get it back. But vengeance might help ease the pain.

Or, death.

No, what was she thinking? She couldn’t just die!

But she could just die, and it would be tragic, and beautiful and romantic and she would finally be with Light again. But no, if she died and Matsuda lived then Kira would have fallen and there would have been nothing left to prove that that foolish man had singlehandedly tried to take the life of God.

She wondered what had become of Light sometimes, what would happen to her. Rem had told her of the Shinigami Realm, how it was neither Heaven, nor Hell and yet it was worse – they were forced to kill in order to live and there was nothing worth living for except the fear of a lack of a second afterlife.

What would become of her if she were to die? She had been gifted the Death Note from Gelus, she had bene bestowed this power directly. Her powers were not mere coincidence, and she had no idea how long she had left. But, her lifespan was bound to be long. Gelus had given her life, Rem had given her life, and as many times as she had halved her lifespan, she remained.

She was immortal but cursed, bound to the realm of humanity, lest her clock finally stop ticking.

Death might be a welcome release from the wondering. No, what was she thinking?

She closed her eyes and sighed, perhaps this was something else.

She gazed at the ceiling, “Light? Light are you trying to tell me something?”

Misa drew a hand toward her heart, feeling it ache, she closed her eyes again, screwing her face up. She could see him in her mind. Maybe she was delusional, maybe she was hysterical, maybe she was finally seeing?

He looked just as beautiful as he did when he was alive, his mousey hair and deep brown eyes glistening under the light of her rose-tinted mind. His voice was warm, smooth and alluring as he called for her, arms outstretched, “Misa… Come back to me.”

“Light,” she whispered, “Please don’t ask me to do that…”

Her eyes welled with tears, and she couldn’t help but douse her candles. She felt so heavy, so uneasy, she needed to sleep. She needed to get this thought out of her head. She had to sleep it off. There had to be another way.

His voice followed her into her sleep as she eased her way into the unconscious. Memories of him plagued her dreams, fantasies merging with realities, daydreams and things she wanted to have happened. She dreamed of babies with big brown eyes and his mousey hair. She dreamed of marrying him, how spectacular the ceremony would have been, and how she would have all but sprinted down the aisle to finally marry him. She loved him so much. She wouldn’t have been happier.

Her dress would have been a fit and flare with tool at the bottom of the skirt. It would have had a deep plunging illusion neckline, decorated with crystals. The sleeves would be lace, starting halfway down her upper arms and flare out at the elbows.

He would have looked dashing in his sharp black suit, it would have been crisply ironed and his hair would have been gelled back. He would have shed a tear when reading his vows and she would have sobbed as he put the ring on her hand. She wouldn’t have stopped crying.

Ideally, Sochiro wouldn’t have died, he was collateral damage, he could have been spared, had he not been so upstanding of a citizen. She would have danced with the Yagami family, finally be part of their family after all of those years of loving their son.

She had written her vows a million times over before he died.

“I’d die for you, I’d kill for you, I’d live for you. Light, you came into my life and brought clarity back when I had nothing. You gave me everything. I will love you in this lifetime, and every other.”

She had lit those vows on fire when she got her memories back. It was such a double edged sword, if the police had seized those words then they could use them as evidence for how she was the Second Kira. But that was okay. She had them committed to memory.

She opened her eyes late in the morning on February 14th, aching, body feeling empty. She longed to feel his arms around her middle, and when she rose from her blanket fortress, she sighed, and took a scathing shower, searing his skin and prepping herself for a date.

She had flat-ironed her hair and dressed in her finest black lace gown, stockings, garters and petticoats. She eased her snowy socks into freshly polished shoes, and painted her pale face with deep dark makeup, her eyes fanned by doll-like lashes, and porcelain powder heightened with the daintiest blusher. Then there was her lipstick, the bloodiest crimson, as if she had torn the skin fron her lips.

She sat at her desk and wrote her last address to the world, to her love, to God, to Kira. She was ready. Eyes glassy, teary and vacant.

Misa Amane left her home at 3:15pm on 14th February, walked across the city and stopped at the first public overpass that hung over a dual carriageway. With little effort, she hoisted herself over the railings and stared out to the setting sun, her hands reaching out toward the disembodied voice of her love.

He was right there, but he wasn’t. She could see him. He was just there. She knew he was. And so, with tears falling from her eyes, she stepped off the ledge of the footpath and fell into the incoming traffic.

_‘Misa Amane, Suicide:_

_On 14 th February, Misa Amane will be driven to insanity, bereft by the loss of the love of her life, Light Yagami. She will dress in her finest clothes and leap to her death into oncoming traffic’_

Those words were the last ones in a Death Note, resting in a desolate pile of dust.

The only way to kill a Shinigami was to make them fall in love with a human. Light was in love with Kira, and so, anyone who threatened to besmirch his legacy, even his supposedly beloved bride-to-be would be struck down.

On St Valentines’ Day, Misa Amane left the Human Realm, and Light Yagami left the Shinigami Realm.

They never met again, and Misa, Misa never entered the purgatory of the wicked that had used the Death Note. She was, instead, the plague of the Shinigami Realm, and was thus released back into the mortal world, to be born again, and lure more God’s to their demise. She was a siren for Death, bringing it to her doorstep no matter how many times she would live, or die, decimating the Shinigami population every few lifetimes.

Thus was the fate of someone as lovely, and yet rotten as Misa Amane.


End file.
